


God, I Want to Breathe

by ADreamIsASoftPlaceToLand



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Depression, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Missing Scene, Sort Of, but it's Zolf so, ngl this one's a little bleak, spoilers for ep 156, that's to be expected, vague suicidality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27813760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamIsASoftPlaceToLand/pseuds/ADreamIsASoftPlaceToLand
Summary: This letter isn’t the start of something new. It isn’t the chance at a new beginning. This is the end of her story.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Zolf Smith
Comments: 12
Kudos: 29





	God, I Want to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always sad about Zolf and Sasha. 
> 
> title from "Breathe Deep" by Sleeping at Last, which is in fact a Zolf Smith song.

Wilde begins to read the letter, “ _Alright, mates? Sorry about the erroribus. It’s been so long that you all speak Latin in my dreams. But you know I wasn’t all that good in English to start.”_

“Nope, no. I can’t do this,” Zolf cuts Wilde off, feeling like the floor’s been dropped out from under him. _She was alive_. _She survived. He could have found a way to save her, he should have done something_.

He bolts out the door, but just a few steps out the door he freezes. His hands are shaking and he feels like he’s going to collapse, and so he does. He slumps against the wall, sliding down until he’s crouched on his knees, leaning his forehead against the cool wood paneling. He wants that letter, he wants to read it, he wants to burn it and pretend it never existed in the first place, he wants to-

Zolf takes a breath. She survived. She survived long enough to write a letter. And the letter found them, _somehow_. Maybe that means she was okay. Maybe she had a good life. Maybe- Maybe she never needed him. Maybe it’s all just been his guilt, his stupid _responsibility_ complex, his desperate, _foolish_ hope that he could save everyone, that he could save _someone_. That he could save-

Zolf takes another breath, hands curling into fists. He squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to breathe. In, and out, over and over again, trying to keep his head from spiraling down every possible path- every _possible_ end for Sasha. Because that is what that letter is, isn’t it? It’s the end for Sasha. He’ll never hear from her again, never see her ducking in and out of shadows, befriending gargoyles because talking to them was easier than talking to _people_. He thinks, for the first time - he’d never _really_ let himself think about Sasha, not ’til now - that there was a part of him that still had some hope for her. That maybe they’d figure out a way to go back for her. That they could bring her back, that she could come _home_. That their story wasn’t over. That he’d get to-

But this letter isn’t the start of something new. It isn’t the chance at a new beginning. This is the end of her story. This is the final page, written without him in it. He wrote himself out of Sasha’s story eighteen months ago, had walked away and taken for granted that the book would still be open when he returned. But now the page is filled, Sasha’s last words to them all scrawled across a piece of paper over a thousand years old. Zolf slips into the office after Hamid, Azu, and Wilde have left. He reads the letter, and then places it gently on the desk in front of him.

This is the end of Sasha’s story, and Zolf starts thinking about his own story. He’s seen a lot of endings in the past couple of years, and the more endings he sees, the less he convinced he becomes that any of this is worth it. What’s the point in a fight when there’s no one left to fight for? Maybe his story is supposed to end now, too. Maybe it was supposed to end a long time ago. He returns to his room, finally letting all the thoughts he’s been pushing aside overwhelm him. They flood his mind, and he lets himself start to drown in them, sinking deeper and deeper into the immense loss he’s been ignoring for _so long_.

But then, there is a knock on his door. Hamid is in his room and they’re drinking and- talking? Fighting? Zolf isn’t sure anymore, but he’s too tired to push Hamid away, and far too tired to pull him closer. But even though Zolf wants to let himself go, wants to disappear into the darkness that is always at the edges of his vision, when Hamid asks him to tell him it’s going to be okay, he still says he hopes it will. At the edge of everything, he _still_ hopes. He still _wants_. He’s not sure he’s putting up a fight anymore, but despite all of it, he still hopes it will get better. He still hopes he’ll make it. And that isn’t enough for Hamid, for any of them, not even _himself_ , but it’s all he has. This is not the end of Zolf’s story, not yet.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr @shorter-than-her-tbr-pile


End file.
